UTC TV Studio open house features special guest

Davan Maharaj, UTC graduate and editor of the Los Angeles Times, will be the special guest at an open house for the University’s newly renovated TV Studio on Thursday, October 17.

Davan Maharaj

The public is invited to tour the TV Studio beginning at 11 a.m. It is located at 501 Houston Street at the corner of McCallie Avenue and Houston. Maharaj will make a special presentation to the public at 12:15 p.m. in the Chattanooga Room of the UTC University Center.

“The UTC TV Studio is a wonderful community resource,” Chancellor Steve Angle said. “We hope this open house can show the powerful partnerships that are possible with the University and the region. And we are pleased to have a University graduate of Davan Maharaj’s stature speak at this important event.”

The UTC TV Studio is part of the Department of Communication, one of only 111 accredited programs of journalism and mass communication in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

From the Los Angeles Times website:

As editor of the Los Angeles Times Media Group, Maharaj oversees the largest daily newsgathering organization in the West. It includes the flagship Los Angeles Times, the nation’s fifth-largest newspaper; latimes.com, the nation’s second-largest newspaper website; LA — the Los Angeles Times Magazine; Times Community News, which consists of seven suburban daily and weekly newspapers and websites; and the Spanish-language Hoy and Fin de Semana newspapers and websites. Maharaj, a 25-year veteran of The Times, was named editor in December 2011.

Maharaj has worked as a reporter for The Times in Orange County, Los Angeles and East Africa. His six-part series “Living on Pennies,” in collaboration with Times photographer Francine Orr, won the 2005 Ernie Pyle Award for Human Interest Writing and inspired readers to donate tens of thousands of dollars to aid agencies working in Africa. Closer to home, Maharaj’s investigative report about a Leisure World attorney who inherited millions of dollars in stock, land and other “gifts” from his clients led to changes in California probate law.